After reading a post in youth ministry group I’m a part of about fall planning and Dan’s teaching scope sand sequence I got my act together, prayed, brainstormed, chewed on and finally finished the fall teaching schedule for our student ministry.

As I worked through his scope and sequence I saw great wisdom in the pieces he choose to use. As I began to think through how it would work in our context here and what we are trying to accomplish I broke it down and decided to use his chunks as building blocks and themes. Dan broke his scope and sequence down into 3 years among two programs and for the most part I followed his lead.

Ps 146: 5-9
“Blessed is he who’s help is the Lord.” How am I allowing God to help me or am I trying to do it all alone?

Why should I seek God for help?

6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who
keeps faith forever;

7 who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the
hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8 the Lord opens the eyes
of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord
loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the sojourners; he
upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he
brings to ruin.

Ps 147:3- “The Lord heals the brokenhearted & binds up their wounds”

I am learning that amazing as the promise of this verse is, unless we surrender our brokenness to God He not going to just barge in and heal us.

As I read through Ps 146-148, I stand in awe of God because of the truths proclaimed of His nature and desire to help people who can trump humble themselves and truly seek Him.

Mathew 17

vs 17- I wonder how often He asks Himself this question of me.

We act faithless so often in our own lives, in the work we don’t do as the church or trying to reach lost people. This has got to change.

vs 20- I am working this verse in to my payer time.

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to
you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to
this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and
nothing will be impossible for you.”

Mathew 18

vs 4- have I humbled myself & taught others to do so: to be, think, act, love, react like a child towards the things & ways of God?

vs 8-9- Jesus again (like in Matthew 5) talks about taking drastic measures to remove the things in our lives that cause us to sin.

vs l0-14- Why are we not more about the things that make God and heaven rejoice?

vs 21-35- This is a huge problem today. We are so unwilling to forgive but expect that God’s not going to hold it against us.

70 x 7=490 | How many people have sinned against us that many times. Not that Jesus is saying its an exact number but a large number of times that we are expected to forgive. We have such a huge debt we are asking bad to forgive us of, we should be more than willing to forgive those who wronged us.

I’ll hopefully post my notes on Ephesians 1 & 2 tomorrow.

Application:

How am I taking time to stand in awe of God for who He is and all that He does?

How am I stepping out in faith and where am I praying for or doing things that require God to show up to be accomplished?

Where am I allowing myself child-like faith to hold true that God is going to show up and work in ways only He can and not look at my life and ministry through the lens of logic and reason?

Matthew 15 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'” (Matthew 15:8, 9 ESV)

This is the point of verse 1-20. The heart. The quicker we understand that its not obeying rules or laws but that God has always been after the hearts of His people (think of the first commandment you shall not have another god before Me & the greatest commandment love the Lord your God with all your HEART, mind, soul & strength) the fast we will stop worrying if one sin will separate us from the love of God.

This problem that Jesus tells the Pharisees is their issue is the same issue that plagues do many churches and Christians: following man’s traditions verse God’s word.

If we were to ask people in the church questions that about scripture like most people outside the church they would unfortunately get just as many wrong. Cleanliness is not next to godliness. We’ve got to be people who hunger & thirst for righteousness and we aren’t going to find it outside of God’s word.

Back to the heart issue. Jesus says what comes from the heart is what God is concerned about. He says from the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft false witness & slander. But if we do what hearts do and that is love, and so if we love God and seek to please Him like we do all those that we love our hearts won’t be filled with these evil ways but with God’s ways.

vs 21-28 Jesus heals this woman’s child even though He says He was sent to be a sign to the Jews first and the apostles would take salvation to the Gentiles. But this persistent woman keeps on Jesus because she knows He can heal her daughter. I wonder if her statement about the crumbs from the table eludes to it just taking a little of Jesus power to heal her daughter or that she understands He came to the Jews first and her position as a Gentile and because of her understanding Jesus heals her daughter. Anyways her faith is commended and we ask would ours be?

1 Thessalonians 5

vs 1- starts out interesting where Paul says I really don’t need to tell you this but I will.

vs 2- Paul says you already know, Jesus return is like a thief in the night. You never know when they are planning to attack, so be ready.

A lot of Christians waste a lot of time focused when Jesus is coming back and what are the signs leading up to it. We will never know. We need to fill our time focused on the mission of the church: making disciples who make disciples. If we do this we will be ready when He comes back and we’ll never have to worry about the signs of the time that may or may not be what ushers in His second coming.

I read a great article last week that not only has implications for the future of life but the future of the church and youth ministry. The faster we are able to recognize the future or learn from futurists (like Alan Hirsh, Andrew Jones, Brad Sargent, Tony Sheng) the better the church global will be and the great impact we will have for days to come. So this article I read on Gigaom brilliantly touched on competencies that future works that thrive will know, understand and implement. The same is going to be true of churches/ youth ministries that know, understand and implement in their context and culture. Below is a list of the competencies that I believe have implications for the church and ones that we need to be leaders breaking the new ground on starting today.

Sense-making. The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed

Social intelligence. The ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions

Novel and adaptive thinking. Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based

Cross-cultural competency. The ability to operate in different cultural settings Computational thinking. The ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning

New-media literacy. The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms and to leverage these media for persuasive communication

Transdisciplinarity. Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines Design mind-set. Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes

Cognitive load management. The ability to discriminate and filter information for importance and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques

Virtual collaboration. The ability to work productively, drive engagement and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team